The i386-specific portion of the NetBSD 1.2 release is found in the "i386" subdirectory of the distribution. That subdirectory is laid out as follows: .../NetBSD-1.2/i386/ INSTALL Installation notes; this file. binary/ i386 binary distribution sets; see below. floppies/ i386 boot and installation floppies; see below. security/ i386 security distribution; see below; utils/ Miscellaneous i386 installation utilities; see installation section, below. There are four i386 floppy images to be found in the "i386/floppy" subdirectory of the NetBSD 1.2 distribution. Two of them are bootable kernel-copy floppies, one is an installation floppy, and one is an upgrade floppy. They are all described in more detail below. There are gzipped versions of each available, for easier downloading. (The gzipped versions have the ".gz" extension added to their names.) Bootable Kernel-copy floppies: These disks contain file systems, are bootable, and have enough utilities on board to copy a new kernel to your hard disk once you have it partitioned for NetBSD. They make upgrading to a new kernel easy, because all you have to do is get a new kernel-copy floppy with a new kernel, boot from it, and confirm that you want to have the kernel copied to your disk. There are two different kernel copy floppy images, "kcadp12.fs", and "kcoth12.fs". They are identical except that the kcadp floppy has the drivers for the supported Adaptec SCSI controllers -- the Adaptec 1520, 1522, 1540, 1542, 1740, 1742, 1744, and 2940 SCSI host adapters and the AIC6x60 and AIC7870 chips on motherboards or other brands of SCSI controllers -- and does not contain the drivers for any other SCSI host adapters, which are in the kernel on the kcoth floppy. (The kernels on the install disks are otherwise identical.) Please note that because of space considerations the kernel copy floppies no longer contain drivers that are not needed during installation -- in particular, no drivers needed to run the X Window System are available in these kernels. It is recommended that you configure a custom kernel following installation. For those that cannot configure a custom kernel, two "generic" kernel images, named "netbsd-adp.gz" and "netbsd-oth.gz", have been placed in the binaries directory. These are identical except that "netbsd-adp.gz" contains support for Adaptec SCSI controllers, but no other SCSI controllers, and "netbsd-oth.gz" contains support only for SCSI controllers other than the Adaptec. (These are similar in nature to the kernels on the kernel copy floppies but with additional device support.) It is strongly encouraged that you build a custom kernel for your installation rather than use a prebuilt generic kernel. Installation floppy: This disk contains the software necessary to prepare your hard drive for NetBSD and install the NetBSD distribution. It is not bootable, and must be used in conjunction with one of the kernel-copy floppies. This floppy is named "inst-12.fs". Upgrade floppy: This disk contains the software to be used in upgrading the system from a previous version of NetBSD. It is not bootable, and must be used in conjunction with one of the kernel-copy floppies. This floppy is named "upgr12.fs" The NetBSD/i386 binary distribution sets contain the binaries which comprise the NetBSD 1.2 release for the i386. There are seven binary distribution sets, and the "security" distribution set. The binary distribution sets can be found in subdirectories of the "i386/binary" subdirectory of the NetBSD 1.2 distribution tree, and are as follows: base12 The NetBSD/i386 1.2 base binary distribution. You MUST install this distribution set. It contains the base NetBSD utilities that are necessary for the system to run and be minimally functional. It includes shared library support, and excludes everything described below. [ 7.5M gzipped, 19.5M uncompressed ] comp12 The NetBSD/i386 Compiler tools. All of the tools relating to C, C++, and FORTRAN (yes, there are two!). This set includes the system include files (/usr/include), the linker, the compiler tool chain, and the various system libraries (except the shared libraries, which are included as part of the base set). This set also includes the manual pages for all of the utilities it contains, as well as the system call and library manual pages. [ 4.9M gzipped, 15.0M uncompressed ] etc12 This distribution set contains the system configuration files that reside in /etc and in several other places. This set MUST be installed if you are installing the system from scratch, but should NOT be used if you are upgrading. (If you are upgrading, it's recommended that you get a copy of this set and CAREFULLY upgrade your configuration files by hand.) [ 63K gzipped, 338K uncompressed ] games12 This set includes the games and their manual pages. [ 2.8M gzipped, 6.9M uncompressed ] man12 This set includes all of the manual pages for the binaries and other software contained in the base set. Note that it does not include any of the manual pages that are included in the other sets. [ 0.8M gzipped, 3.4M uncompressed ] misc12 This set includes the system dictionaries (which are rather large), the typesettable document set, and man pages for other architectures which happen to be installed from the source tree by default. [ 1.9M gzipped, 6.6M uncompressed ] text12 This set includes NetBSD's text processing tools, including groff, all related programs, and their manual pages. [ 0.8M gzipped, 2.9M uncompressed ] The i386 security distribution set is named "secr12" and can be found in the "i386/security" subdirectory of the NetBSD 1.2 distribution tree. It contains crypt.c (the source file for the DES encryption algorithm) and the binaries which depend on it, as well as the "bdes" DES encryption program. You do not need this distribution set to use encrypted passwords in your password file; the "base12" distribution includes a crypt library which can perform only the decryption function. The security distribution also includes a version of the Kerberos IV network security system, and Kerberized versions of the "telnet" and "tn3270" programs. The "secr12" distribution set can be found only on those sites which carry the complete NetBSD distribution and which can legally obtain it. (Remember, because of United States law, this distribution set may not be exported to locations outside of the United States and Canada.) [ 154K gzipped, 358K uncompressed ] The i386 binary distribution sets are distributed in the same form as the source distribution sets; catted together, the members of a set form a gzipped tar file. Each i386 binary distribution set also has its own "CKSUMS" file, just as the source distribution sets do. The instructions given for extracting the source sets work equally well for the binary sets, but it is worth noting that if you use that method, the files are extracted "below" the current directory. That is, if you want to extract the binaries "into" your system, i.e. replace the system binaries with them, you have to run the "tar xfp" from /. Also note that if you upgrade or install this way, those programs that you are using at the time will NOT be replaced. If you follow the normal installation or upgrade procedures, this will be taken care of for you.